War on Poverty: The poor, no longer rural and elderly, are mostly young and female

By Maya L. Harris

Special to the Mercury News

Posted:
02/05/2014 10:00:00 AM PST

Updated:
02/05/2014 02:27:26 PM PST

Watching politicians and pundits argue about whether we won or lost the War on Poverty, it strikes me that we should be asking a different question.

The issue isn't whether we have triumphed over poverty's persistence. It is whether we will be bold enough to pursue 21st century solutions that recognize that the face of poverty is no longer rural and elderly but increasingly female and young: Today, of the more than one-third of Americans who struggle at or near the poverty line, almost 70 percent are women and children.

A new study, "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink," paints a bleak portrait of this quiet economic crisis. Forty-two million women, one in three, are teetering on the edge of poverty, and so are the 28 million children who depend on them. For 40 percent of American households with children, women are the primary or sole breadwinners.

"Many of these women feel they are just a single incident -- one broken bone, one broken-down car, one missed paycheck -- away from the brink," says Maria Shriver, the driving force behind the report.

Here in California, we've been ahead of the curve in pursuing workplace policies that acknowledge women's increasing role as both primary breadwinner and primary caregiver.

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A decade ago, we became the first state to adopt a paid family leave policy, providing women and men some relief from the impossible choice between caring for family and bringing home a paycheck. California businesses have benefitted, too, reporting in a 2010 survey that the policy has had either no effect or a positive impact on profitability, productivity and morale.

We are also leading the country in raising the minimum wage to double digits -- a crucial ingredient of economic stability among women, given that nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women.

And while the gender wage gap persists, in California it is among the smallest: Women earn 84 cents to the dollar earned by men, compared to the national average of 77 cents.

Still, that 16-cent wage disparity, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families, means California's women can afford 62 fewer weeks of food for their families, seven fewer months of rent, and more than 1,900 fewer gallons of gas per year compared to men.

It's worse for women of color, with Latinas earning 44 cents on the dollar -- positioning California in second-to-last place -- and African-American women only 63 cents compared to white men. Closing this gap is one of the keys to helping women under the poverty line pull themselves into the middle class.

Additionally, we need to build on our state's pioneering approach to employee leave. Assembly Bill 1522, introduced in January, would require one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked for employees statewide.

In The Shriver Report poll, women ranked paid sick days -- standard policy in every other industrialized nation -- at the top of their list to help them juggle their dual roles.

Connecticut provides a road map. It implemented statewide paid sick days two years ago, and businesses there report a reduction in turnover and increases in productivity and morale.

Progress on these issues will not only help lift California's women and their families but also give momentum to efforts throughout the country. In so doing, it will strengthen our national economy.

Maya L. Harris, who early in her career was dean of Lincoln Law School in San Jose, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and a contributor to "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink." She wrote this for this newspaper.